[Tlhingan-hol] O for a Muse of fire

[De'vID jonpIn]

QeS 'utlh:
> > Would you mind sending me a copy of your notes so far? They might shed a
> > bit of light on other parts. I'll send you mine in return as soon as I
> > get through the last sentence or two.

De'vID:
> I'll do so when I have the opportunity to type them up.  Like I wrote
earlier, maHvatlh was taking notes on his laptop, which died at the qepHom.
 I have some handwritten notes but they're disorganised.  I'll organise
them and try to type them up tonight.

I have a page of scribbles of various ideas we tried out, which I shall now
try to organise.

We think that the first Klingon lines correspond to the first English lines
of the play, but that Gowron in fact skips, or greatly abbreviates, several
lines after that.

Here are the opening lines of the play.  We think these lines are included
completely:
    O for a Muse of fire,
    that would ascend
    The brightest heaven of invention,
    A kingdom for a stage,
    princes to act
    And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!

We think these next lines are abbreviated:
    Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
    Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,
    Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire
    Crouch for employment.
    But pardon, and gentles all,
    The flat unraised spirits that have dared
    On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
    So great an object: can this cockpit hold
    The vasty fields of France? or

And we think Gowron ends his speech with this line:
                                                 may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?

The first line is:
    O for a Muse of fire
        {'o 'oghlu'meH qul}
            = O fire for the purpose of inventing
(This line is confirmed by MO, so there is no doubt about it.)

This is followed by:
    that would ascend
    The brightest heaven of invention,
        ro{b|v}aka {Dev[=De'?]wI'} zhonazhah
        {QI'[tu' wov] law' chal wov[=woch?]qu' wov puS}
We have no idea what "rovaka" might be, and we have some theories about
"zhonazhazh" but nothing definite.  I think the second line begins in <Q>
for sure; O'Reilly pronounces <Qa'Hom> like "gwaaahom", so "gwee" is almost
certainly <QI>.  He sounds like he's saying "gweev" <QIv?>.  But <QI'tu'>
would fit "heaven" somewhat better.

    A kingdom for a stage
        {jogh[ta] 'oS logh 'e' [luj?]lu'} [error: {'e' X-lu'} should be
{net X}]
The word that should be "kingdom" sounds like "shock-ta".  Again, this
could be any number of things: maybe a compound with <jogh> "quadrant", or
a badly mangled <Hatlh'a'> (since he mispronounced <H> as <S>, and who
knows what <tlh> turns into).  The next word is probably <'oS>, which is
followed by "loo her".  We think it might be <logh ['e'?]>.  This is
followed by something that sounds like "looch lu".  This could be <lujlu'>,
or <lIjlu'>, or even <lajlu'>.  However, {'e' X-lu'} is ungrammatical, the
proper construct is {net X}.  OTOH MO has made this error before.  Another
theory is that "looch lu" is <luch lIw> (and in particular, <lIw> is a
really appropriate concept for the ideas in this paragraph).

    princes to act
        {lut cha'wI'pu' 'oSjaj SuvwI'pu''e'}
            = May warriors represent story show-ers
We discussed this line earlier.  It's probably the clearest line, after the
opening line.

    And monarchs to behold the swelling scene! ... {poD} ...
    The vasty fields of France?
        {neSlo'} losh jaj losh bej
        {ngaj? puH?} lesh lo
        biyaj lotoyme pushlah {qa'[-Ha'|-H'a'} Ha'DIbaH je}
We have no idea about the next several lines.  He seems to say {neSlo'}
"mirror", but perhaps the word is too new.  But maybe it works,
metaphorically, for "scene"?  The rest is basically garbled, except at the
end he says "shadiba je", which is definitely <Ha'DIbaH je>.  The word
before this may be <qa'>, or it could be the end of a verb ending in
<-Ha'>, or a question <-'a'> with a verb ending in <H> or <q> or <Q>.  You
just don't know with O'Reilly's pronunciation here.  We also don't know how
many lines were cut out here.

However, we are fairly confident that the monologue ends with this line:
    may we cram Within this wooden O
    the very casques that did affright the air at Agincourt?
        {[toH!] ghovam} ghosh chaq keba dak {'aghIn} tok{=Daq?}
        choq{=Hoch??} {lughIjpu'?} chah
        {mIv} ya meshay{=-'e'?} {DIghoDlaH'a'?}

We think <ghovam> is "this [wooden] O", the word that sounds like
<'aghIn[toq?]> is Agincourt, "loogweeshpoo" is <lughIjpu'>, and <mIv['a']>
is "casques"; and {DIghoDlaH'a'} "can we stuff them?" matches "may we
cram...?" extremely well, so we're confident about that as well.  The only
other plausible options are <DIHoHlaH'a'> or <DIHo'laH'a'>, and neither
matches anything in the English.  So the entire part from <ghovam> to
<DIghoDlaH'a'> corresponds to that one line in English, but it may be one,
or many, lines in Klingon.

Maybe someone can take the above ideas and do something with them.
maHvatlh hasn't posted anything or replied to my e-mails, so I'll assume
that he's either still traveling or otherwise unable to access his e-mail.
He took notes on his laptop, which may be different from mine (I
reconstructed mine mostly from memory, plus scribblings on paper), so he
may have more ideas to post.

--
De'vID
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